The present application relates generally to railway maintenance and includes methods and apparatus for improving track maintenance operations.
Generally, a railroad includes at least one pair of elongated, substantially parallel rails coupled to a plurality of laterally extending ties, which are disposed on a ballast bed. The rails are coupled to the ties by tie plates and spikes and/or spring clip fasteners, which is an example of a class of fasteners that may be referred to as anchors. The ballast is generally hard particulate material such as, but not limited to, gravel. The ballast filled space between ties is referred to as a crib. Ties may be crooked or skewed and not extend generally laterally, i.e. perpendicular to, the rails.
During installation and maintenance, various operations may be performed at tie locations. For example, ballast may need to be tamped, or compressed, to ensure that the ties, and therefore the rails do not shift and are positioned correctly; anchors may need to be tightened; or ties may need to be replaced.
Track maintenance activities generally require multiple operators riding on the track maintenance equipment or controlling it from alongside the railroad. It would be desirable to reduce the number of operators needed to perform track maintenance operations.
Track maintenance equipment typically moves from tie to tie to perform operations. These machines accelerate (under their own power) to the ties requiring work. As they approach the tie, they slow down to a stop, perform the required work and move on to the next tie to repeat the cycle. This results in slow progress of work, increased energy usage, and increased wear on parts of the equipment from repeated acceleration and deceleration. It would be desirable to reduce the acceleration and deceleration, and associated inefficiency, involved in the track maintenance operations.